Youth Group Stuck in Israel After Flights Are Halted

Like thousands of Jewish children, a group of 25 high school students with the North American Federation of Temple Youth took a summertime excursion to Israel, in their case spending much of their two weeks at Kibbutz Tzuba in the golden Judean Hills outside Jerusalem. They were supposed to fly back to New York on Tuesday night.

But their flight, like those operated by at least three American airlines and several European airlines, was canceled after a Hamas rocket landed one mile from Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv. The Federal Aviation Administration instructed air carriers to temporarily halt flights to and from Israel. The specter of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner struck down recently by an antiaircraft missile over eastern Ukraine doubtlessly has added to the airlines’ anxiety about sending planes over combat zones.

Several leaders of Jewish organizations that sponsor such trips, having already had to deal with children suddenly sent to bomb shelters for the past few weeks of Hamas rocket fire, seemed stoic about the latest burden. They said they were answering calls from worried parents, but were making sure that the young people under their responsibility were safe.

“We’re working minute by minute to try to reschedule them, but in the meantime they’ll be housed in the kibbutz,” said Annette Powers, a spokeswoman for the Union for Reform Judaism, the parent organization of the youth group. “We’ll have educational programs and fun programs, and they are going to continue doing them. They’re not going to be sitting around watching the news.”

Tens of thousands of Jewish American teenagers and young adults spend their summer in Israel. Some study in yeshivas in Jerusalem or across the border in the West Bank. Others go to summer camps there or stay with relatives on kibbutzim, or collective farms.

Still others take trips with organizations like Birthright Israel, which offers 10-day tours that are not religious in nature. Since the travel suspension is currently for only 24 hours, there is little sense among the young participants of being stranded.

Nevertheless, some parents are concerned. Laura Ben-Shimon’s 18-year-old daughter, Danielle, ended her monthlong program in Israel on Tuesday. Ms. Ben-Shimon and her husband were planning to join her and spend time with relatives before returning to their Las Vegas home in mid-August. But Ms. Ben-Shimon was informed Tuesday that her Wednesday morning flight to Tel Aviv had been canceled, and she has decided not to fly to Israel at all. Now they are trying to bring Danielle home next Tuesday.

“I’m disappointed that we can’t be with our family and saddened about the devastating situation,” she said. “I’m nervous about how the rockets are being thrown aimlessly into civilian territory in Israel.”

Birthright Israel has 31,000 participants in its programs this season, which runs from May to September. Stan Steinreich, a spokesman, said, “We’ve been around for 14 years, with 400,000 participants, and unfortunately we’ve had similar situations we’ve had to deal with.”

One of the organizations leading trips for Birthright is Young Judaea, one of the oldest Zionist movements in America. This summer the group has taken 1,500 participants to Israel for Birthright and for other programs such as one that includes introductions to Israeli leaders and journalists.

Ayelet Margolin, a spokeswoman for Young Judaea, said several groups of teenagers were still in Israel and had been there since the conflict with Hamas started. “Parents who have been worried about the security situation are now wondering whether their kids are going to be able to come back home,” she said.

But, she said, many parents feel the conflict “is making their experience more valuable.”

“The kids get to ask hard questions and have conversations about it and debate about it and form opinions about it,” she said. “They get to see the complexity of living in Israel and being Zionist and loving Israel.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of one of the organizations that sponsors youth trips to Israel. It is the North American Federation of Temple Youth, not the National Federation of Temple Youth.

Correction:

An article on July 23 about young Americans stranded by a temporary halt on flights to and from Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv described incorrectly, in some editions, the location of the West Bank, where some Jewish Americans study at yeshivas during the summer. It is an occupied territory adjacent to Israel; it is not in Israel.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Youth Group Stuck in Israel After Flights Are Halted. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe